US charges Russians with hacking weapons watchdog

THE four Russians accused of launching a cyber attack on the chemical weapons watchdog investigating the Salisbury Novichok poisoning have been charged in the US.

Allegations against the men in the States surfaced on Thursday hours after Britain and the Netherlands accused them of being members of the GRU mil- itary intelligence agency. They are also charged, along with a further three defendants, with being part of the ‘Fancy Bears’ group that hacked anti-doping authorities and leaked records causing controversy for cyclist Sir Bradley Wiggins and other sports stars.

US prosecutors backed Britain in saying Evgenii Serebriakov (37), Aleksei Morenets (41), Oleg Sotnikov (46) and Alexey Minin (46) were the GRU agents who targeted the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in April.

The thwarted cyber attack came as investigators at the Netherlands facility were about to confirm the UK’s research on the nerve agent used to target former Russian spy Sergei Skripal.

The seven men were charged in Pennsylvania with computer hacking, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laun- dering to promote Russian interests by nefarious means, prosecutors said.

They are also accused of being part of the ‘Fancy Bears’ team that compromised the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Leaks led to the revelation that Olympic gold medallist and Tour de France winner Wiggins had been granted permission to use a banned substance.

The Briton was forced to argue he had a genuine medical necessity to take triamcinolone, which would have remained private if not for the hack.

The GRU is also accused of targeting the investigation into the MH17 plane crash, which killed 292, and a US nuclear energy company.

The other accused — named as Ivan Yermakov (32), Artem Malyshev (30) and Dmitriy Sergeyevich Badin (27) — are believed to be in Russia and almost certainly will not be extradited.